KATHLEEN D. BAILEY
Special to the New Hampshire Union Leader

LONDONDERRY — Bill Graser likes to retell a story first related to him by Sam Masessa, a Korean war veteran and fellow resident of The Nevins Retirement Community in Londonderry.

“China had come into the war on the side of North Korea,” Graser recalled. “They were in position, waiting to attack, and our own tanks opened fire. It was so loud that Sam lost his hearing. After the sun came up, there were dead Chinese soldiers everywhere, stacked like firewood. Sam and his comrades had to borrow some flame-throwers, so they could burn the bodies.”

You do what you have to do, and it’s never more true than in wartime. Graser, a.k.a. retired Sergeant First Class William R. Graser, US Army (Ret) has made it his mission to collect veterans’ stories and share them, both verbally and in his book, “Veterans’ Reflections: History Preserved.”

Stories to tell

Graser began recognizing other veterans for their service with an annual Veterans Day ceremony at The Nevins, a large senior living complex off Route 102 in Londonderry. He was determined that his neighbors’ stories not be lost or forgotten. He started directing the ceremony in 2006, honoring 20 veterans. That project grew and gave him the idea for collecting their stories.

“It was the right thing to do,” he said in The Nevins media room in the clubhouse.

He began interviewing vets and collecting photographs. He started with his own community, going one-on-one with veterans. Because Nevins is a senior complex, many of the people he interviewed were veterans of World War II, the Korean War and, occasionally, Vietnam. Because of the times, there were also fewer women vets.

“But one woman just moved in, an Army veteran who also spent four years in the Air Force,” he said.

Graser put out his first edition of “Veterans’ Reflections” in December 2015. He revised the self-published book for April 2016, and continues to update it when he meets a new vet or one of his regulars comes up with a new story.

“It was a learning experience, right out of the gate,” he said. “I had to ask a lot of questions.”

But he had 50 stories before he sat down to write, and ended up with 60 by the time the book was published.

Graser’s aim is to share the stories, in the vet’s own words whenever possible, to give context and to educate. He begins the book just after World War I, explaining the situations in Italy, Japan and especially a devastated Germany.

“Germany economy was very weak, production and transportation came to a standstill … and that set the stage for Hitler,’” he said.

World War II

Graser’s first interviewee appears in the World War II section. Clement Hutchins, a lieutenant junior grade in the Merchant Marine, was on a ship ferrying supplies to the Allies. It was so cold in the North Atlantic that the ice slowed the boat, giving the German subs free access.

“They decided to reroute the ships through the South Atlantic,” Graser said.

Hutchins left the service after the war and “went on with his life,” Graser said. “He’s still with us. He’s 90 and as sharp as a tack.”

Though Graser focuses on the Nevins veterans, he doesn’t mind ranging farther afield for a good story.

“I was looking for something on the ‘Doolittle Raid,’ the bombing of Tokyo, and I was able to speak with the son of one of the pilots. The man, Todd Joyce, was the son of Lt. Richard Joyce. Graser paraphrases Joyce’s story: “He was the pilot of Plane 10, in a group of sixteen B-25 Mitchell medium bombers. His son asked him, ‘What was your scariest moment?’”

The senior Joyce responded it was when his plane was hit and badly damaged. He was the last one out of the plane, and went to the door to jump. “The velocity,” Graser said, “whipped his pistol out of its holster. He had nothing with which to defend himself.”

Richard Joyce told his son he could hear his plane spinning out of control above him, and he wondered, “What if the plane falls on me?”

Graser said, Colonel Richard “Dick” Cole, US Air Force (Ret) is the sole surviving veteran of the Doolittle Raid. Cole marked his 101st birthday in 2016. Eighty brave Americans participated in the “Doolittle Raid.”

Korea

Graser had no problem garnering stories from veterans of the Korean War, with two fellow residents, Jerry Page and Masessa, particularly helpful. A Korean winter was 35 degrees below zero, and the men spoke of frostbite, frozen rations, icy terrain and jammed weapons.

“But in the summer it got to 100 or 110,” said Graser, who also spent time in Korea.

Page was part of a small observation team overlooking the No Man’s Land between North and South Korea in May 1953. with fighting forces on both sides. Their observation equipment was destroyed, but their bunker was not hit, Page told Graser, adding laconically, “Boy, that was a surprise.”

The ‘hot’ Cold War

Graser’s book moves into the 1950s and 1960s, with the so-called “Cold War” between the United States and the Soviet Union. He identifies two “hot wars” that took place during this time: Korea and Vietnam. He’s talked with several Vietnam veterans, including a former Marine who was wounded in Vietnam and lives in his community; a retired Air Force colonel who led 168 bombing missions; and the adviser to an Army infantry unit.

He also features the story of a young sailor, Seaman Charles Hamblett, who was serving on the destroyer USS Fiske (DD 842) at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Hamblett was in Jacksonville, Fla., on shore leave when his crew was rounded up.

“Nobody knew where they were going,” Graser said. “After two weeks at sea, the captain finally told them.”

Graser’s own service came out of that period. He was planning to enlist in the Army as a combat engineer in 1965, but got recruited and rerouted into Army Intelligence, serving in Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Germany, Occupied West Berlin and Arlington, Va.

Keeping it alive

Graser continues to coordinate the Veterans Day services at The Nevins. He regularly does book signings and speaking engagements.

“We are losing 500 World War II vets a day,” he said. “The VA has estimated that by 2036, none will remain. It’s important to me to collect these stories. I wish I had even more.”

Each era he’s explored has a different attitude toward service, he said. In World War II it was, “My country needs me, so I went.” That patriotism was still alive in Korea, even though at the end of the conflict nothing had changed. “They were proud,” he said, “that South Korea still existed.

For Vietnam, Graser said, veterans’ commitment “was not so much patriotism, but toward each other. As the war continued with no plan, patriotism started to wane.”

In the final three years of that war, it was no longer about patriotism, but about survival, Graser said.

“Veterans’ Reflections: History Preserved” is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble’s website, Barnes & Noble in  Salem, N.H. and Burlington, Mass., Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, N.H., Stars and Stripes Gift Shop in Windham, N.H. and through iUniverse.com. The paperback retails at $21.95. It is also available in digital form. A copy is available at the Leach Library in Londonderry.